Will technology replace the elite

Elbaston

TLDR; Is it getting to the point where people basically have an increasingly large degree of independence from private suppliers in practically every aspect of their lives - so leaving superpower corporations and their monocle wearing stake-holders without dominated markets/effective monopolies.

And so financially killing off the super-rich executives.


For example:
Used to be the case that you paid whatever price was set by shops in town - then ebay or amazon came along (a global company owned by many people), a technology which granted independence from city shop owners.

Im sure that must have killed off at least one chortling rich owner who was taking the p1ss with prices somewhere in Dublin.
(and other towns)


Or maybe as another example - Solar panels (ok not great for Ireland). If they ever became super cheap then a private power entrepreneur who was screwing the people with steep prices would no longer be necessary to the people. 1 cheap panel and its goodbye to the rich stake owners leverage in your life.


Or say if the electric car ever does actually get going, the oil barons are pretty much dead overnight. (it must at some point - 50, 100 years or whenever). You'll have no need for their petrol and so one less multi billionaire sheikh.


Basically are the super-rich under threat from technology.
The market seems to be getting more and more suppliers for everything.

Maybe some day soon someone will come up with a super cheap way to make processors, or they'll just be so common that you'll pick up a packet of a 6ghz processor made by any choice of hundreds of suppliers for 50 euro.
(good bye hugely paid Intel exec's)

If theres 100 suppliers of cheap technologies thanks to tech advancements for every aspect of your life, then will there be any need for Bill Gates' of this world ?

Just a thought .... although a long winded one.

PS- Im not a commie. (not that thats necessarily bad)

humbert

So your ideal here is that local moderately wealthy business owners will be replaced by international super-rich business owners?

rovoagho

You know people own Amazon, solar panels and electric cars, right? Quite rich people, although I'm unsure if Elon Musk has a monocle.

Sunglasses Ron

Elbaston wrote: »

TLDR; Is it getting to the point where people basically have an increasingly large degree of independence from private suppliers in practically every aspect of their lives - so leaving superpower corporations and their monocle wearing stake-holders without dominated markets/effective monopolies.

And so financially killing off the super-rich executives.


For example:
Used to be the case that you paid whatever price was set by shops in town - then ebay or amazon came along (a global company owned by many people), a technology which granted independence from city shop owners.

Im sure that must have killed off at least one chortling rich owner who was taking the p1ss with prices somewhere in Dublin.
(and other towns)

How so?

The vast majority of stuff on the likes of eBay can be bought in a bricks and mortar store for cheaper and with more recourse if it is faulty or you plain don't want it anymore. And even if it is more expensive, most people would rather spend an extra fiver to buy an item they have there and then rather than pay a stranger for a possibly correct item that they have to wait a few days for. eBay may be good for buying stuff so rare it won't be in the shops, but for the likes of buying a pair of runners it is an overpriced mugs game.

rovoagho

Sorry, but that's simply not true. I buy something on eBay nearly every week, precisely because it can't be had locally. And by locally I mean Ireland. If something does happen to be available in Ireland, it's invariably a multiple of the price on eBay.

Of course this doesn't apply to everything, but it does in an awful lot of categories. Motor parts and electronics in particular.

Elbaston

humbert wrote: »

So your ideal here is that local moderately wealthy business owners will be replaced by international super-rich business owners?

mmmm ...kind of along the lines of the inverse. so many people will own so many shares in so many large companies for every conceivable aspect of our lives that we'll be effectively be able to tell any one company where to get off, thus resulting in executives not earning 100 squillion gazillion a year and not having the power to screw you.

Also, Ive bought stuff off ebay that was both cheaper and/or not available in Ireland.
Many people own these companies - rather than 1 shop owner who wanted to stiff me with a ridiculous price.

grizzly

If one player in a market fails (energy, retail etc.) the rich just reinvest the money in the winning competition. Trades happen in micro seconds so "stakeholders" don't lose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWSxzjyMNpU

humbert

Elbaston wrote: »

mmmm ...kind of along the lines of the inverse. so many people will own so many shares in so many large companies for every conceivable aspect of our lives that we'll be effectively be able to tell any one company where to get off, thus resulting in executives not earning 100 squillion gazillion a year and not having the power to screw you.

Also, Ive bought stuff off ebay that was both cheaper and/or not available in Ireland.
Many people own these companies - rather than 1 shop owner who wanted to stiff me with a ridiculous price.

But what reason do you have for believing that online/international companies will behave like a cooperative more so than current established companies?

The wider the reach companies have the more likely a winner-takes-all culture will develop.

ScumLord

Elbaston wrote: »

TLDR; Is it getting to the point where people basically have an increasingly large degree of independence from private suppliers in practically every aspect of their lives - so leaving superpower corporations and their monocle wearing stake-holders without dominated markets/effective monopolies.

Super power corporations are still making money hand over fist nothings changed for them, if anything it improves there business because they sell more. All that's happened is middlemen and smaller businesses got cut out of the equation, Amazon is still a big super power corporation that's sucked up all the supply revenue for it's top brass. It's consolidated that money into an even smaller group of people. With middlemen, suppliers and local shops that money got spread around to more people. So pretty much the exact opposite effect from what your describing.

And so financially killing off the super-rich executives.

No eliminating competition and consolidating available money into an ever smaller group of people.

Used to be the case that you paid whatever price was set by shops in town - then ebay or amazon came along (a global company owned by many people), a technology which granted independence from city shop owners.

No it destroyed them by eliminating people and location from the equation. Now a big robot factory dispersed objects made in automated factories to the people that got fired from those jobs.

Im sure that must have killed off at least one chortling rich owner who was taking the p1ss with prices somewhere in Dublin.
(and other towns)

Yes, there can be only one chortling rich owner and he shall own it all.

Or maybe as another example - Solar panels (ok not great for Ireland). If they ever became super cheap then a private power entrepreneur who was screwing the people with steep prices would no longer be necessary to the people. 1 cheap panel and its goodbye to the rich stake owners leverage in your life.

The guys who make the solar panels will turn into your powerful private owners then.

Or say if the electric car ever does actually get going, the oil barons are pretty much dead overnight. (it must at some point - 50, 100 years or whenever). You'll have no need for their petrol and so one less multi billionaire sheikh.

Oil is needed for a lot more than cars. Don't worry the corporations making the electric cars are diligently working on ways to screw you out of money with their electric cars too.

Basically are the super-rich under threat from technology.
The market seems to be getting more and more suppliers for everything.

No the super rich are becoming richer using technology. To the point no one will have the capital to invest in the type of factories needed to compete with the already established corporations.

Maybe some day soon someone will come up with a super cheap way to make processors, or they'll just be so common that you'll pick up a packet of a 6ghz processor made by any choice of hundreds of suppliers for 50 euro.
(good bye hugely paid Intel exec's)

It already is super cheap to make things these days, corporations charge what they think you will pay not what the products worth.

Gummy Panda

Awww... I was hoping the OP was referring to Logan's Run

Frank Lee Midere

Elbaston wrote: »

mmmm ...kind of along the lines of the inverse. so many people will own so many shares in so many large companies for every conceivable aspect of our lives that we'll be effectively be able to tell any one company where to get off, thus resulting in executives not earning 100 squillion gazillion a year and not having the power to screw you.

Also, Ive bought stuff off ebay that was both cheaper and/or not available in Ireland.
Many people own these companies - rather than 1 shop owner who wanted to stiff me with a ridiculous price.

But what's happening with Amazon is the reverse of what you say. Power is being centralised at the cost of local producers.

KyussBishop

So long as the 'elite' are in control of the economic/financial system, you are screwed no matter what you do; they own you (and everyone else) through debt.

If they inflate the price of houses, and you want somewhere to live (and don't want to opt for the lopsided rental market), then you will pay the price in debt when you get a mortgage.

You want to heat your home, use electricity, buy virtually any product? You probably end up spending a portion of that on fossil fuels, which are the lifeblood of all world economies (a cost factored, one way or another, into every good), with prices that are heavily manipulated internationally.

There are a multitude of ways that powerful financial/business folk engage in 'rent-seeking' upon economies/people, and there largely isn't any way to avoid that without reforms.


There aren't any ingenious alternative solutions or shortcuts for sidestepping the control of corrupt elites around the world, there's only implementing the correct political/economic reforms.

Elbaston

ScumLord wrote: »

It already is super cheap to make things these days, corporations charge what they think you will pay not what the products worth.

That kind of sums up the area im getting at - if it becomes increasingly easy to produce these things thanks to improved technology then their supply goes up, price goes down, its a buyers market.
Eventually processors for example might get to the price level of a loaf of bread, and if that should be coupled with another free alternative to google then thats effectively the IT aspect of your life freed from Bill Gates or ... Mr Google.

Some of the stuff we have to day would have amazed a person from the 70's. Say if 3D printers get really good, and turn into small/mid sized companies - You could print off car parts, and so you're now to a large extent independent in the transport aspect of your life, from Nissan, Peugeot etc.

For a country like Spain maybe a solar panel could power a house. Thats the energy aspect 90% independent. Sure the manufacturer will make the product, but if its cheap enough and with buckets of suppliers, then its a one off cheap buy and theres no-one to bill you regularly and you dont have to budget for them.

So thats possibly the IT, Transport and light/heat/electric aspects of your life.
Get yourself a cow and some hens after that and you're basically fully independent.

Mr Executive now has nothing to offer and gets an honest job tilling the soil and picking olives or something.

I dont need your product cause I can print it, I dont need your service cause I supply myself. I dont need your currency cause Ive got bitcoin - that sort of vibe/direction.

ScumLord

Elbaston wrote: »

That kind of sums up the area im getting at - if it becomes increasingly easy to produce these things thanks to improved technology then their supply goes up, price goes down, its a buyers market.

That's basically how it should work but some companies are in a position of holding back product to make it seem rare (diamonds, news iPhones), Or another trick is make some minor change to a product, only make 1000 of them and suddenly it's a rare collectors edition that you can charge double for even though it cost you a fraction of a cent to make the change. The markets are being played by big money and there is no way of bypassing them, they get their cut of everything.

Eventually processors for example might get to the price level of a loaf of bread, and if that should be coupled with another free alternative to google then thats effectively the IT aspect of your life freed from Bill Gates or ... Mr Google.

Google isn't free, advertisers pay for it, businesses pay for it and I think governments pay to use their mapping services. You get it for free because access to you is the selling point of the service.

Some of the stuff we have to day would have amazed a person from the 70's. Say if 3D printers get really good, and turn into small/mid sized companies - You could print off car parts, and so you're now to a large extent independent in the transport aspect of your life, from Nissan, Peugeot etc.

I don't think 3D printers are going to be the miracle cure you think they are. I can see them being added to production lines but I don't see them replacing production lines because a 3D printer won't be as fast or cheap. In your example of making a car door, you're going to have to buy all the different elements aluminium, rubber, zinc, copper, etc.. It's going to cost you a fortune to buy those and have them shipped to your door. What if your printer is faulty, uncalibrated or set up wrong? Are you going to trust your life on something you made in your bedroom? Then if something does go wrong you've only yourself to blame, no guarantee, no comeback.

Get yourself a cow and some hens after that and you're basically fully independent.

Were are you going to find time to take care of animals when you're building all the stuff you need? Are you going to make your own clothes too? The whole advantage of human society is you don't need to do everything to a substandard level yourself, you can hire a highly skilled and experienced person to do it right for you.

Mr Executive now has nothing to offer and gets an honest job tilling the soil and picking olives or something.

Mr Executive is a young go getter with ambition, he'll find a niche for himself and continue hoarding whatever counts for wealth.

I dont need your product cause I can print it,

My product is now printer supplies and servicing.

I dont need your service cause I supply myself.

When you get sick of working 10 times harder for half the amount of product at 3 times the price I'll be waiting with a two for one special.

I dont need your currency cause Ive got bitcoin - that sort of vibe/direction.

Sorry we don't accept bitcoin. Our money is just paper, it only holds value because everyone agrees it does.

bnt

There's a word that the OP ought to learn: Rentier. This is what economists call someone who makes money through controls or restrictions, not by making things. *

Examples: a landlord is a Rentier because he controls the use of a property, by renting it out. He (typically) didn't build it, he bought it, and now he makes money from it by doing little or nothing other than controlling its use. A "patent troll" is a Rentier: he tries to restrict access to intellectual property, with the single aim of making money off of it. Neither actually make anything.

An investment banker is partly a Rentier, since he makes money by controlling the flow of money. I say partly because the money he uses is usually someone else's, and the goal is for both him and the money's owner to make more money. The owner (a.k.a. "rich person") is a Rentier since he uses his money to make more money. Neither actually make anything.

A "modern" company like Apple is partly Rentier, and aims to be more so, since that's where the easy money is. Apple designs products like the iPhone, which can be considered a creative act, and then they outsource the manufacturing to China, where it's cheapest to build them. They also operate the iTunes store to control access to content for those devices: apps, music, books etc., none of which they make themselves i.e. they profit through the labour of others.

Now read the OP's post again, with the Rentier concept in mind. Who benefits? The "super-rich executives" will be the Rentiers who make money through control of the markets, regardless of what actually happens on the ground. Those of us who make or support the physical reality barely scrape by, and I don't see that changing.

* edit: KyussBishop above talks about 'rent-seeking' - another way of describing a Rentier, and I agree with his analysis too.